[selykg]

I am by no means a musician or an experienced one at that. I tinker and enjoy playing and learning. But I have limited experience overall.

My personal experience with electronic tools is the lack of feel. Can I make music with digital tools like AxeFX and similar? Absofreakinglutely. No doubt about it.

But those digital tools feel VERY different to me than the real thing. I'm not just talking about a speaker moving air, though that's certainly part of it. My tube amp simply responds differently than any digital model of a similar amp.

I find tools like the Kemper to be amazing, but they're just a snapshot of an amp in a particular configuration in a particular room.

From a technical standpoint, all this modeling stuff is super cool. But it doesn't feel the same at the end of the day and this is a personal opinion and preference on my part.

I look forward to the day that I can get an amp in a pedal (like the Strymon Iridium) and it behaves the same as the real amp. I think Fender's Deluxe Reverb (Tonemaster model) is as close as it has ever gotten, but it very specifically emulates a single amp and does so within a real amp cabinet rather than pushing it out to an audio interface.

Anyway, anything that gets people playing guitar is, in my opinion, a great thing. We live in a golden age of guitar equipment. I don't think it can honestly get much better than it is right now. It's an amazing time to be a guitar player and incredible options are available at amazing prices.

[melq]

>My tube amp simply responds differently than any digital model of a similar amp.

Can you expand on this a bit? Curious what you mean by responds and what the difference is.

[selykg]

Sorry, bit late here. I generally play my amp on the edge of breakup. So the idea, for those not familiar, is that when the guitar is played softly you get clean tone, played with a bit more aggression and you get breakup, or distortion but not a ton of it. Think like a blues tone, where you get just a little bit of fuzz/grit.

The feeling of this is significantly different in almost every emulated/simulated/modeled amp than reality. They can be close, but the "feel" of it on the guitar side is often quite different.

Generally speaking, I feel like I have more control over the sound and how it plays with a real tube amp over a modeled amp.

Does that help? I approached this as if you aren't a guitarist, but if you are, sorry for the boring bits that you already probably know.

[melq]

Yah that makes a lot of sense. I am a guitarist buy 90%+ of the time I play acoustic.

[wintermutestwin]

I find that the AxeFX gets enough of the tube amp feel right by modelling amp sag.

It is indeed an amazing time to be a guitar player!

[renaudg]

>Anyway, anything that gets people playing guitar is, in my opinion, a great thing. We live in a golden age of guitar equipment. I don't think it can honestly get much better than it is right now. It's an amazing time to be a guitar player and incredible options are available at amazing prices.

It sure is a great time for guitar equipment, as the digital revolution has made its way there too.

But being a guitar player is also increasingly lonely : https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-s...

And it's arguably an opportunity cost for a kid to be pouring so much effort today learning the iconic (but tired) instrument of the boomer generation, when they could be breaking new musical ground instead, mastering Ableton's Push for instance. But to each their own, of course.

[wintermutestwin]

In the late 80s it sure seemed like the guitar was doomed. On one hand there was new wave with its synths and on the other were the guitar "gods" who wanked on with amazing technical precision making amazingly pedantic music. Then in the 90s the guitar and rock was reborn and suddenly cool again. It will come back and it won't be tired anymore. There are so many things that the guitar has barely hinted at in the past that will resurface as innovation. In the meantime, you can learn the guitar AND new tech. Besides, there will always be the draw of impressing a member of the opposite sex at a party by picking up a guitar. You just don't have that with "check out my latest drum programming, etc...

[selykg]

I mean, music is music, play what inspires you.

Calling the guitar a boomer generation instrument is odd.

I suspect Martin would argue they were well ahead of the curve, since they've been creating guitars for over a hundred years.